Now With Added Devolution, Fewer Services, and Even Less Memory Local councils are, we are endlessly assured, champions of transparency. This is said often, confidently, and usually just after something significant has happened without anyone quite noticing. Transparency, in the modern council sense, does not mean visibility. That would invite questions. Instead, it means thatContinue reading “Transparency at the Local Council”
Tag Archives: local-government
Smile, Pay, Be Quiet
The Lib Dem Art of Hypocrisy: When Residents Speak and Power Laughs Written in another age, but uncomfortably familiar today: We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet,Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street.It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first,OurContinue reading “Smile, Pay, Be Quiet”
The Cowards of the County
Devolution: How Responsibility Was Abandoned, Bills Were Exported, and Accountability Quietly Abstained Devolution, in theory, is about local empowerment.In Shropshire, it has become something else entirely: the systematic off‑loading of cost, risk, and responsibility from a failing unitary authority onto the smallest, least‑resourced tier of local government — and ultimately onto residents. Let us beContinue reading “The Cowards of the County”
When the Money Ran Out: A Tale of Two Councils (and One Missing Opposition)
There are only two honest ways to respond to a financial crisis. You either take less yourself — or you become very clever indeed. Shropshire Council has tried both. Just not at the same time. 2011: When Councillors Went First At a full meeting of Shropshire Council in January 2011, during the early austerity period,Continue reading “When the Money Ran Out: A Tale of Two Councils (and One Missing Opposition)”
Snouts First, Public Last
When Pain Was Shared, Not Shelved In 2011, Council Leader Keith Barrow stood at the despatch box and told Shropshire councillors that “there is going to be pain and we should all take our share of it.” He promptly sliced councillors’ allowances by 5%, cut mileage rates, and asked officers to consider reducing the totalContinue reading “Snouts First, Public Last”
No More Excuses. No More HMOs
It’s Time for Section 4 – and It’s Time Our Councillors Grew a Spine It’s not complicated. Oswestry doesn’t need more HMOs. It doesn’t need absentee landlords stuffing vulnerable or unknown individuals into former family homes. And it certainly doesn’t need councillors who’ve chosen careerism and cowardice over public safety and common sense. Where IsContinue reading “No More Excuses. No More HMOs”
The Gatekeepers of Silence: Shropshire’s Transparency Dream Team
The Transparency Tango: A Two-Council Performance in Delayed Disclosure Let us distil this for the public record: This, my friends, is not administration. It is performance art. And the recurring theme? Transparency is a threat to the system. Act I: Shropshire Council’s FOI Vanishing Act On 1 March 2025, a Freedom of Information request wasContinue reading “The Gatekeepers of Silence: Shropshire’s Transparency Dream Team”